Lighthouse Imaging Becomes a Novation-Awarded Supplier

Lighthouse Imaging Becomes a Novation-Awarded Supplier, Offering Hospital and Medical Center Members Group Purchasing Power for Endoscope Testing Equipment

Organizations served by Novation, including approximately 2,500 hospitals, now can purchase Lighthouse’s Endobench endoscope image quality tester using Novation agreement terms

PORTLAND, MAINE – Lighthouse Imaging, LLC, a provider of endoscope image quality test equipment, announces it has become a Novation-awarded Supplier. This agreement offers the 2,500 hospitals within the network of member organizations and affiliates served by Novationmarket-leading pricing for Lighthouse’s flagship EndoBench tester. Supply costs are second only to labor costs in terms of hospital expenses, and this agreement will enable member organizations to drive down costs for endoscope maintenance and repair while reducing risk. Novation is the medical industry’s largest supply contracting company, and serves the purchasing needs of 65,000 VHA, UHC, Children’s Hospital Association and Provista acute and non-acute member organizations and their affiliates.

Poor quality scopes are a risk to patients and expensive for hospitals and medical centers, which typically contract with external providers for scope repair services – a $2 billion annual market. However, the vast majority of scope manufacturers and independent repair firms do not offer quantitative verification of repair quality, exposing medical centers to risk and unnecessary cost.

Lighthouse Imaging’s line of Endobench endoscope testers enable hospitals to quantitatively measure rigid and flexible endoscope optical quality and performance upon purchase to establish baseline measurements, prior to procedure to ensure patient safety, and after service to verify that repairs were completed properly. The EndoBench testers are the only products available that objectively measure all clinically relevant optical parameters. In addition, with its complete integrated database, the EndoBench line also meets new Joint Commission standards for tracking rigid and flexible scopes in medical equipment inventory.

“We are pleased to award Lighthouse’s endoscope testing equipment through our innovative technology evaluation process,” says Michael Vintges, vice president, physician preference, sourcing operations, Novation. “Novation is always looking to add products that advance the benefit to patient care, patient safety and health care worker safety to our portfolio. Our Innovative Technology program allows us to take a thorough and sophisticated approach to reviewing the exciting new products entering the market, while also fully engaging hospital member input and feedback.”

“We are proud to be selected as a Novation Supplier, as our new agreement will help the thousands of members it serves to improve patient safety and reduce unnecessary endoscope repair costs,” says Mark Waite, Lighthouse Imaging CEO. “We are eager to help these members strengthen what has been a complex, expensive, and inefficient system.”

In addition to the EndoBench and EndoBench XT products offered through the Novation agreement, Lighthouse Imaging offers a full line of endoscopic testing instruments that objectively measure and verify all clinically relevant optical parameters throughout the entire endoscope lifecycle.

EndoBench and EndoBench XT are portable endoscope testers that enable hospitals and surgical centers to measure the optical characteristics and performance of endoscopes when new, between procedures, and before and after repair.

Endobench XTB is a bench-mounted endoscope image quality test system for scope manufacturing and scope repair QC testing, suitable for high production work environments.

Endolume enables biomedical engineers and medical professionals to test their entire endoscopic illumination system quickly, easily, and affordably on site. Hospitals can avoid swapping out expensive bulbs that still have useful life, representing a significant savings.

About Novation, Winner of the Ethics Inside® Certification
Founded in 1998, Novation is the leading health care supply chain expertise and contracting company for the more than 65,000 members of VHA Inc. and UHC, two national health care alliances, Children’s Hospital Association, an alliance of the nation’s leading pediatric facilities, and Provista, LLC. Novation provides alliance members with sourcing services, as well as information and data services. Based in Irving, Texas, Novation develops and manages competitive contracts with more than 600 suppliers. VHA, UHC, and Provista members used Novation contracts to purchase more than $40 billion in 2011. Novation recently earned the coveted Ethics Inside® Certification from Ethisphere Institute, a leading international think tank dedicated to the research and promotion of best practices in corporate ethics and compliance. Novation was also named on Ethisphere’s World’s Most Ethical Companies list, and is the only company in the health care industry to earn both distinctions. To learn more about Novation, please visit novationco.com and follow @NovationNews.

About Lighthouse Imaging Corporation

Lighthouse Imaging is an award-winning provider of optical engineering and design services for the medical device industry, with more than 18 patents issued. Our NIST-traceable test and measurement equipment is manufactured in the United States at our ISO 9001/13485 certified and FDA registered facility.